Bobcat Goldthwait is probably most famous for his work as a stand-up comedian and actor, appearing in everything from the Police Academy films to Disney’s Hercules. But starting with 1991’s Shakes the Clown, he’s carved out a name for himself as one of the most interesting filmmakers working today. His projects range from a found-footage bigfoot horror movie, Willow Creek, to a death-by-autoerotic-asphyxiation comedy and Robin Williams vehicle, World’s Greatest Dad, to the utterly hilarious and criminally undersung cinéma unawarité masterpiece, Windy City Heat. His film, God Bless America, follows Frank: a man on a killing spree after being diagnosed with a terminal illness. It took aim at American gun culture in an increasingly politically and socially divisive world, all the way back in 2011.

STARBURST: I remember God Bless America was my introduction to your work as a filmmaker. I’d rented it on DVD back in what must have been 2012. My housemate at the time came home with his girlfriend just as I had turned it on. For those unfamiliar with the film, there’s this opening scene with a baby… 

Bobcat Goldthwait: Shooting the baby, yeah.

It’s almost like shooting a clay pigeon, but with this baby… my housemate’s girlfriend just looked at the screen, looked at me and said: “Can you turn this off, please?”

Haha, that should have been on the poster! When I was mixing that scene, I was in this place in Hollywood where other people were mixing. Gus Van Sant was working on something. I know him a little bit, and he came over as that was the scene that was playing out. I don’t know he’s behind me, and I turn around and he goes, “Uh, you really went for it…” 

It feels like a mission statement upfront: “If you’re not on board with this, get out now. Otherwise, settle in!”

Yeah, I think I’ve done that in three of my movies. Certainly, in Sleeping Dogs Lie, there’s a little bit of bestiality at the beginning. And, then, in World’s Greatest Dad, I figured people would kind of know what happened in the movie, so I did a bait and switch where he is doing autoerotic asphyxiation, but that’s it.

My friend, Tom Kenny, had a theory on that. Tom Kenny, I’ve known since I was six. He’s the voice of SpongeBob. We’ve been friends our whole lives, and we started doing comedy as teenagers. He said I used to come out on stage, and people weren’t expecting this guy who was trembling. They weren’t expecting someone to gut fish on stage and not say any words, or I would read a Dear John letter and cry. But then people knew who I was, and they were kind of expecting that. Tom thinks that my movies are the place where I get to challenge people right out of the gate. He was like, “It makes sense you make movies because you could no longer flip people out doing stand-up”. 

Funnily enough, I wanted to ask you about Tom Kenny. He makes a cameo at the start of the film as an office worker.

Yeah.

I couldn’t find anything about this online, but I swear I also heard his voice three or four times at various points throughout the film.

Yeah, good ear! That’s Tom doing a lot of that. That goes back to Shakes the Clown. He’s doing a lot of what you hear on the radio and things like that. He does a lot of that in the movie. It was really fun. Him and another buddy of mine, Dave Boat, and Tom’s wife, Jill Talley. It’s interesting, when I did an episode of my anthology show, which was almost all animated, Tom came in when it was time to record the voices. He directs a lot of animation voices, and it was so amazingly helpful. He’s really great at that. So we work together as often as we can. 

God Bless America is streaming on STUDIOCANAL now, but the political and cultural climate is very different these days. How do you think the film has aged?

I mean, people say this a lot – they’ll say, “Oh, you couldn’t do that joke now” or “You couldn’t do this show anymore”. But I really don’t think you could make God Bless America. Certainly in the United States right now. But what fueled the whole thing was I was like “Where are we going?” because you could see the writing on the wall, how dark things were getting, but things actually got way darker than I imagined.

If you were going to try to make it now, is there anything you’d do differently?

There are a couple of scenes I would add to it, which is funny because it’s the only movie I’ve made where I regret a couple of scenes not being there. There’s a security guard that walks them out, then at the end of the movie, he encounters a security guard – it’s a different guy. It should have been the same guy. And there’s a scene in the middle I would add where that security guard goes to the authorities and says I know who it is and no one trusts him. No one believes him. I think that would have made it a better movie, but whatever.

Now that the movie is streaming, are you seeing a resurgence in popularity?

There are a lot of folks who take clips of Frank’s speech. Those are going around the internet, and I get tagged on those a lot. I believe it’s because people feel that it pertains to now, you know? Obviously, they do. They’re not getting nostalgic. They’re kind of saying, “This pertains to now”. 

What are your thoughts on Luigi Mangione?

Haha, I could do the pat answer and say, “Well, it’s a tragedy when anyone dies”. But no, I’m like, “Go Luigi, man”. If someone told me that Luigi had seen this movie and it inspired him, I would go “Right on!”

I’ve moved out of the US. I live in Ireland now. America got too great, you know? Not that Ireland and the UK have the perfect government and don’t have setbacks and stuff, but the insanity that’s going on in the States right now is… that’s what it is: it’s insanity.

Your last scripted feature was 2013’s Willow Creek…

I believe it would be Willow Creek, yeah. And then I did the Call Me Lucky documentary. I did that anthology show I was talking about, Misfits & Monsters. I should try to work on getting it over here, you know? Because I don’t know where people can see it if you’re in Ireland or the UK. 

Please do! Are you working on any new films currently?

I have two screenplays that I feel are in shape right now, that I’m out, trying to get going. One of them, believe it or not, is a very sweet movie. I wrote a family picture. My friends read it and they said, “The most fucked up thing about this movie is you wrote it”. 

It’s not like a movie where I’m trying to sell out – it’s like every time I make a movie, I try to challenge myself. I just feel like the most punk-rock thing I could do right now is to make a sweet, hopeful movie. That’s really going against the grain right now. You want to want to piss off the fascists, you just need to be happy and that’ll piss them off, you know?

I have to make stuff, so I know if I get any more frustrated, I’ll go back to my roots and go make a movie with an iPhone and stuff – which I have no problem with, you know? I’m not sure where I’ll make a movie next, so that’s the biggie.

So you might make it in Ireland or the UK?

Yeah, I’d be really surprised if I don’t.

Talking about your future projects, are we ever going to see Gay Billy Jack?
[Billy Jack was the protagonist of a series of action movies starting with The Born Losers in 1967. Goldthwait spoke about his desire to make a gay reboot of it on an episode of Harmontown back in 2015.]

Oh, you know what’s funny? I actually dusted that off not long ago and started working on it. Billy Jack, he was kicking ass for hippie causes, and so I love the idea of a gay action hero, you know? Actually, this is weird: I’m bringing up Gus again. I said to him, “I want to make the coolest – that if you were a 12-year-old, gay kid, this would be the coolest movie outside of 800”. Wasn’t that the movie where the soldiers – was it 800?

Yeah, 300.

I added 500! I go, “Besides 300”. Gus says “Isn’t 300 a gay movie already?” I was like, “Oh yeah, OK”. 

But yeah, it’s funny. I did dust that one off. My daughter identifies as a lesbian, and I told her a scene in it where these guys are harassing these lesbians, and then, the Billy Jack character – he shows up and he starts defending them, and they go to him, “No, we got this”. And then they kick the bad guy’s ass. I go “Do you think that’s good?” and she goes “Yeah, I think that’s a good scene”.

That movie needs to be made like a ‘70s film, you know? With those zoom lenses and probably shot on Super16 or something. It should be made that way. It’s not ever going to get a studio budget, but I don’t think that would work anyway. 

Now our readers can check out God Bless America streaming on STUDIOCANAL, is there anything you’d like to say to prime them – either as first-time viewers or if they’re planning to revisit the film?

You know, I think sometimes people think the movie is like me with a grudge list. But it’s a violent film about kindness. But what happens is it has to be corrupted. They have to be doing a bad thing because murder is bad. I think, sometimes, people wanted them to have Kevlar vests on and stand back up, but I guess that’s how the sequel starts.

Is a sequel something you’d ever consider? 

No, you’d have to do like a Muppet Babies version and do, like, Frank as a teenager. Maybe that! But now that it’s streaming, you need to convert your roommate’s girlfriend.

I’ll send her this interview!

GOD BLESS AMERICA is available to stream on STUDIOCANAL Presents now.